Better Than Nothing
by XrhiaX
Summary: When Bad Wolf Bay, three months after Doomsday, isn't goodbye for the Doctor and Rose, the two find themselves on opposite ends of a long-distance relationship, unable to communicate except via a pan-dimensional mobile phone link. 10Rose, multi-chapter set during Season 3.
1. Prologue

"You look like a ghost," she says tentatively, worried that she's talking to an apparition - that she's finally gone insane and conjured up a hallucination of the one thing she misses the most. The wind takes the volume out of her words - takes away any lingering strength left in her voice.

The image of the Doctor's brows are tilted, and he's flicking his ancient eyes over her face with recognizable concern. With no humor or warmth in it, he replies softly, "So do you," before he swallows and takes his hand from his pocket, withdrawing the sonic screwdriver. He aims it at the space beside him, and then he solidifies. He returns his gaze to her, and Rose can see clearly that he is there, that he is real, even if the wind that burns her cheeks doesn't seem to affect him. He watches her as if afraid she'll drop any moment. "How long has it been?" he asks, as if the answer will explain how haggard she looks.

Rose has to think about it. She hasn't been counting the days since they were separated, only the miles left to go until she reached this spot - the point that his voice has told her to come to. "It's June," she says, and only then does the answer come to her. "Three months since Canary Wharf." And then, her frown deepening, she asks, "How long has it been for you?"

The Doctor immediately smiles, but Rose doesn't really know why. "Hours," he glances downward, slipping the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket, along with his hand. Then, hesitantly, he looks up and admits, "Maybe days. I haven't slept," he shrugs simply, trying to feign flippancy. "Been busy trying to get this transmission through," he adds.

Rose manages a small smile of her own, her throat beginning to tighten because she knows - she can tell by his voice that this is goodbye. "How …" she starts, then stops to push her wind-blown hair out of her face. "How long have you got?" she asks carefully, not sure whether it's the wind or his helpless expression making her eyes burn.

The Doctor draws a sharp breath and answers, "About two minutes," with a terse frown and a furrow of the brow, all evidence of his ability to smile fading completely. "The TARDIS is in orbit around a supernova right now. In a bit, this sun will burn up and the gap between here and your home universe will contract." He tries not to notice the irony.

Rose sniffs hard, and then gives a sobbing kind of laugh. "Can't think of what to say," she sputters out, tearing her eyes from him and looking out to the horizon, where tumultuous waves are beginning to roll inland. He gives a laugh too, but it's just as strangled - just as forced. Then she looks back to him and meets his stare. She doesn't want to ask it, but she needs the answer. "Am I ever gonna see you again?" her voice breaks.

He smiles thinly, brows tilting sadly. And then he replies, softly, "You can't."

The burning in her eyes intensifies for a moment, and then both her cheeks are wet. She reaches up to wipe her eyes, just as the Doctor takes his hands from his pockets and reaches for her, before he stops himself. He remembers that he's not really there with her - that he can't really reach out and hold her tight, and soothe away her tears, no matter how he may want to.

She all but sobs out her next words, her sleeve still covering one eye. "So this is goodbye?" she chokes out, sniffling. She drops her arm and ignores the new trail of tears that rolls from her eye. Rose watches him with imploring brown eyes, waiting, hoping that he won't give her the answer she's asked him to give her. She doesn't understand the sad, half-triumphant smile that he gives in reply.

The Doctor draws a slow breath. "Does …" he pauses, glancing over Rose's shoulder in the image that the TARDIS has wrapped around him as he speaks to his Rose, " … Mickey still have your mobile phone?" he asks hopefully, and when Rose's brows knit in confusion, he worries for a moment. His hearts sink when she shakes her head, only to rise again when she draws out the pink Nokia from her own pocket. Then he grins. "Dial my number," he instructs her gently.

Rose stares at him for a moment longer. This is the worst moment she's ever experienced, and the Doctor is acting like it's just a regular day. For a moment, her spirits rise. She almost thinks that this is one of those hat-trick circumstances, where the Doctor suddenly finds a way to fix everything and make everything okay again. But his grin doesn't reach his eyes, she notices. Slowly, Rose hits the speed-dial on the phone in her palm.

"It isn't much," he says simply, as he draws a now chirping mobile phone from the pocket of his pinstriped suit trousers, and he gives the phone a weary, disappointed look, before looking back to Rose and smiling warmly. "But it's better than nothing," he flicks his eyes over her face, trying to commit it to memory.

Rose holds her mobile in her hand, and her whole chest contracts with another sobbing laugh as she shakes her head at him. She wipes her cheeks again and gives him an appraising look. "Only you," she comments with another broken laugh. Then his smile is suddenly genuine, suddenly self-satisfied. "Think you're so flash," she reaches out to elbow him playfully, but stops abruptly because he's not really there.

"I _am '_so flash'," he replies with a tilt of the head and a brief display of the inside of his lower lip. "Some credit is due for developing a pan-dimensional mobile phone link through the void and a crack in time and space. Not to mention doing it without anyone getting me tea when I need it," he points out with a despairing shake of the head.

Rose's mood is significantly lifted by his neat little trick, but this is still goodbye, in a way. She'll never see his face again - never hug him, never hold his hand, never kiss him. "This is brilliant," she allows, her smile faltering as she looks to the mobile in her hand. She looks back to him, "But … but I wish I could …" she swallows and reaches out for him. Her hand goes through his chest and she feels like she's about to be sick.

The Doctor's smile is gone again, and he nods. "I know," he allows, and as she pulls her hand back, he reaches his own out to her. In the space between their images, his hand and hers touch one another. Rose goes still, and they stand like that - their palms crossing impossibly through one another. Her fingers would be splayed between his, if not for that pesky physical barrier between universes. His mouth contorts and he wants to scream his frustration. He should be able to feel her cold, visibly reddened fingers on his, but he can't. "Me too," he says tightly, angrily.

Rose slowly draws her hand back, her expression wan. Then she sports a grin, more for his benefit than anything else. "Ah well, at least I won't have to look at your gravity-defying hair anymore. Good thing too, I was starting to question the laws of physics," she teases, wanting her last memory of his face to be of him smiling - him grinning and laughing.

It's exactly what she gets. The Doctor's brows go up and he grins, feigning injured by her comment. "Oi!" he chastises quickly, chuckling at her, "I'll have you know that the laws of physics and I have a decent working relationship. Sometimes I agree not to break them in return for a bit of latitude when it comes to my hair," he jokes back, and for a moment, one heartbreakingly brief moment, things are completely back to normal again.

The two laugh for a moment longer, until the Doctor speaks again.

"Shame though," he cuts in, still chortling lightly, but completely serious, "I really am going to miss seeing your face." The smile on his face is less humored now and more honest. Rose smiles back at him, sadly. "All pink and yellow and …" he pauses and sighs gently, "Don't think I realized quite how pretty you are 'til now." It's a lie, but it's the most casual way he can get out a compliment without her questioning it.

He suddenly flickers.

Rose's eyes widen, and it's suddenly doomsday all over again. "Doctor," she gasps out, because this is it. This is the last time they'll see one another.

The Doctor's face is awash with panic, too. It feels like they're being ripped apart- no, it feels like _he's _being ripped apart. His chest is suddenly tight and he wonders if this is how she's been feeling the whole time they've been talking.

"No," he whispers, eyes darting across from Rose to the TARDIS console, but there's nothing he can do. The supernova that has powered the transmission is burning out, and he's out of tricks. "No! Rose!" he shouts, looking back to Rose to see her hands flying up into her hair and pulling at it. She stares at him.

He's not done looking at her yet. He's not done seeing her smile, and he's not done staring into her eyes. He's not ready to never see her again. Rose's image flickers before his eyes, that image of the beach around them. She's watching him with terrified, leaking eyes again. Her lips move, but he hears nothing.

"_Rose_!" the Doctor hears himself scream out, desperate. He can't stop himself. He reaches out for her, but then she's gone. The beach is gone, and in both hands he holds only the railing in the TARDIS' console room.

* * *

**A/N: So I'm doing a multi-chapter Doctor Who fanfic. It's my first DW fic, so please go easy on me. You've read the prologue, so you've got the pretense, I think. I love those 'Letters To Rose' fics that I see on the Archive whenever I click my bookmark for it, and that's where I got the idea. I'm actually really excited to write a long-distance relationship - never tried it before.**

**Note: The title is from the lyrics to Sheena Easton's 'Telefone'.**


	2. Runaway Bride

It takes them a while to make the first call. For Rose, it's because she's afraid that it won't actually work. For the Doctor, it's because he's still jarred by her absence and doesn't want her to notice it in his voice when he speaks to her. It's only been hours for him since Torchwood Tower, since he watched her hurtle toward the void, and there's a limit, even for a Time Lord, to the amount of shock one can take to the system in a short amount of time.

He's piloting his ship back into the time vortex, a few minutes after he pries his hands from the rail in the console room, when a woman appears in the TARDIS in a bridal gown and plunges him into the usual chaos that his life tends to consist of. He finds himself in twenty-first century London, nine months after the disaster of Canary Wharf. Christmas time. There are a hundred little reminders of the empty space at his side, all of which make him itch to dial her number and hear her voice.

But Donna Noble is something special. She's coarse and a bit rude, all things to be expected from a woman whose wedding day has been ruined by robot aliens, spiders of unusual size and lying, plotting fiancés, but she's also incredibly human. She makes him stop when his vengeful fury at the universe nearly gets him killed, and she even stops accusing him of kidnapping when he looks genuinely saddened by the purple cloth she grabs from the railing in the console room.

So he asks her to come with him. Part of it is that things are too quiet aboard the TARDIS, and part of it is that she really is great fun to be around. The Doctor also knows that she would get on great with Rose - not that that matters, of course. Donna is exactly what he needs at this point; someone to tell him to stop. Someone to remind him that the show must go on.

Donna says no. She has people here, at home, and she's wary of the Doctor's lifestyle. He's taken her to see the dawn of planet Earth, and she's still shaken by that. Donna is just about ready to go home, spend Christmas with her family and sleep away the day's events.

The Doctor can't really blame her. They part ways.

But he's still in Rose's home city, and there's something that's been bugging him. So he goes to Canary Wharf.

Standing at the foot of Torchwood Tower - which has since become a commercial building, and he assumes that Torchwood has been dissolved, now having been proved as a danger to the world - he feels small. The skyscraper climbs up into broiling night clouds that now shower snow down on him, up toward that spatial disturbance that it was built to reach, and the Doctor can feel all the timelines that come to a stop here, each one matching a name on the six-foot-tall plaque that stretches across one side of the foot of the building.

It's when he finds three familiar names that he reaches into the pocket of his suit trousers and draws out his mobile. He dials the number and puts the phone to his ear, keeping his eyes trained on where her name is etched in stone. The line is dead silent for a moment, but then it rings. The Doctor can hear, and almost feel the crackle of scarred void particles against the connection.

When Rose hears her phone ringing, on the other side of the void, she is lying awake in a bed in a motel room on the way back from Norway. She needs sleep, but she hasn't been able to find it. Thankfully, it's early in the night yet, but she's still afraid that she won't be able to fall asleep. For her, it's been two days since she last spoke to the Doctor, since she last saw him.

Then her phone rings, where it sits on the bedside table, and Rose rolls over to grab it, before it wakes Mickey, who sleeps on the sofa on the other end of the room. She answers without even looking at the screen, and brings it to her ear. "Hello?" she asks, both eagerly and worriedly.

The Doctor, standing before her death certificate, finds a warm smile on his face. "Hello," he answers easily, as if she's only five minutes away. He hears her exhaling as though a smile is growing on her face, and it makes his own smile widen. "You missed Christmas eve today," he says cheerfully, turning his back to the plaque and tucking his other hand into his trouser pockets.

Rose, sitting up in the bed at the motel, laughs under her breath. "Did I?" she queries, brows rising on her forehead, "Christmas eve on what planet?" she goes on quietly, keeping her voice a whisper so as not to wake Mickey. Her mother and Pete are in the room next door, and the walls are paper-thin, so there's them to consider too. She knows her mother would sleep through the apocalypse, but she doesn't know about Pete.

The Doctor's brow furrows when he recognizes that she's whispering. "Did I call at a bad time?" he asks, blowing a snowflake off the tip of his nose. The tiny scoff she gives in reply pretty much answers his question, but she gives a verbal reply as well.

"Even if you did I wouldn't care," Rose breathes, pulling back the covers of the twin bed in the motel room and dropping her feet to the floor. "No, Mickey's asleep is all," she explains, as she sinks her bare feet into the plush carpet and grabs her coat from the bedpost.

The Doctor pauses for a moment, and gives a kind of reluctant laugh. "Ah," he says, nodding slowly.

Rose groans and rolls her eyes. "On the couch, you div," she elaborates with a tiny smirk, as she cradles the phone to her ear with her shoulder and pushes her arm through the sleeve of her coat. "We're at a motel. Long way back to England, you know."

The Doctor pushes up his brows and pulls a face. "Oh, yeah. I never asked, where did the gap come out?"

Rose scoffs a chuckle, pulling on her jacket and walking over to the door. "Norway," she replies good-naturedly, not really bothered by the distance, or the time, that they've taken to get her to that beach. There's a pause, and Rose doesn't hear the Doctor's voice again until she's out on the balcony in front of the motel room.

Standing in the snow in London, the Doctor gives a cringe and an awkward smile. "Right," he drawls thoughtfully, "Norway," he repeats, mulling this over, and then hears Rose laughing into the other end of the phone, and the sound is like magic in his ear. His smile grows. "Sorry about that."

Rose is still chuckling. "Don't worry. 'Least it wasn't on Mars," she dismisses it, hugging herself as the nighttime air chills her through her coat and her bare feet soak up the icy cold of the metal balcony. "So, Christmas eve, hm?" she asks curiously, interested to hear what she can tell is probably a very good story.

The Doctor reaches up to wipe some melted snow from his brow, smiling happily. "Yep, on planet Earth. In London, actually," he tells her with a grin, as the whistle of wind strips through the phone and takes away some of the volume in his voice. He laughs, quite excited to tell her all about his adventure today. "Literally minutes after we last spoke, I look up and there's this woman, just standing in the console room."

Rose is still laughing, but now she sounds a bit suspicious. For a moment, she wants to make a joke about him replacing her, but she knows it's too soon to joke about that. The time for talking about his being alone now will come, but for now, they can just laugh and talk on the phone. She furrows her brow, partly in response to him and partly against the brain-freeze that she's getting out here. "How's that then? I thought the TARDIS has like, defenses against that sort of thing."

The Doctor nods emphatically. "Exactly! That's why I was so surprised! Anyway, this woman, human woman, in a bride's dress shows up in the TARDIS and tells me to get her to the church, and she's rude- oh, she was _rude, _Rose, you wouldn't _believe _how rude she was!" he rants energetically, throwing one hand up in the snow as if this will further get his point across, and Rose's laughter in his ear is almost completely drowning out his words, but neither of them care.

"What'd you mean, in a bride's dress?" she asks with a humored snort, when she's able to stop herself from giggling long enough to get a sentence out, "Like, white and poofy?" she reaches up with one hand and pulls the hood of her coat over her head, warming her ears and shielding her mobile from the wind.

"With a veil and tiara and all," the Doctor confirms, moving back over to the plaque behind him, shifting the phone from one ear to the other and switching hands. "So, anyway, she told me to take her to the church, and me, being the good samartian- Samaritan, sorry, that I am, I did exactly that. Well, I tried. She said the church was in Chiswick - I was only a few miles off. Didn't even get the date wrong, and she went and slapped me," he shakes his head, lamenting.

Rose puts her back to the railing opposite the motel room door, dropping her elbow to it and taking a large yawn of the night air. "How'd she get on the TARDIS, though?" she asks, lowering her voice, slightly worried, "I mean, what did she say about it?"

The Doctor gives a long breath and shrugs. "She had no idea what was going on - far as she could tell, she was walking down the aisle one minute, and then standing in a spaceship the next. Must've been quite disorienting, but still, there was no reason to accuse me of kidnapping," he exhales slowly, before pulling his lip to one side pensively.

Rose gives a barking kind of laugh at this. "She _what_?" she strains her voice, disbelieving.

The Doctor doesn't answer this, as he approaches the plaque and fixes his eyes on it for a moment. He's about to go on with his tale, when he's transfixed on her name in the stone. It's strange, because these names - on this list - are a list of the dead. Her name doesn't belong there, nor does Mickey's or Jackie's. She's alive. She's not dead. He smiles slightly, turns his back to the words and leans against the plaque, hooking one ankle over the other. "So, Donna wandered off - that was her name, Donna - and ended up in a taxi being driven by a pilot fish robot."

Rose stops short and frowns hard, staring out over the balcony into the parking lot below, lifting one foot and rubbing the bottom against her pajama trousers to warm it up. "Oh, you're kidding me," she says curtly, quite sure that he's messing with her. "As in Sycorax pilot fish?" she asks, though she hasn't yet decided whether or not she believes him.

"I said Christmas eve, didn't I?" the Doctor reminds her sagely.

Rose groans aloud, and her teeth chatter for a moment against one another. "So 'Attack of the Killer Santas' got a sequel, then," she remarks dryly, crossing her free arm over her chest and tucking her hand into her armpit to warm it up. "I bet Donna was pleased."

The Doctor chuckles, kicking at the ground, where the snow has begun to collect into a layer on the streets, on the buildings, on the cars around him. There's a small lump of ice on the toe of his sneaker, and he shakes it off. "Oh, yeah. Chuffed," he agrees sarcastically, "Practically beaming. In any case, I had to pilot the TARDIS like a helicopter up alongside the cab, on the motorway, and persuade her to jump."

"Did she?"

"Eventually," the Doctor replies coolly. "Then she asked me to take her to her wedding reception, since she'd already missed the ceremony. When we got there, the guests were having the reception without her, and she was _absolutely livid,_" he annunciates the words with a husky kind of emphasis, dipping his head and pushing up his brows conspiratorially. "But she patched things up pretty quickly and all was well for a bit. Nice party. Then, after a bit of snooping, found out that the sole proprietor of the company where Donna and her fiancé worked was Torchwood," he exhales, his words smooth and measured. It's not until Rose goes dead silent that he realizes that Torchwood is not something they're talking about right now.

Rose grabs her lower lip between her teeth to keep herself from saying anything too quickly. Heat rises up through her spine and spreads over her shoulders, burns her ears, and her jaw immediately clenches in apprehension. She controls her next breath, so that it comes out shaky, instead of as a grunt. "Yeah?" she spurs him on, trying to keep her tone light.

The Doctor has paused too, at the road bump in the conversation, but he quickly recovers, with a clearing of the throat and an awkward smile. "Mm. So, just when I've got a lead on where to go next, I happen to spot a Santa out the window. _Exploding Christmas baubles, _Rose," he stresses with an affronted kind of exclaim.

Rose manages a laugh, starting to shiver where she stands on the balcony. Norway isn't exactly known for its palm trees and coconut oil, and while there isn't any snow about, as she imagined there would be, it might be just because it's too damn cold to snow. It's that temperature that turns the ground to rock, that makes people stay indoors throughout January. But she misses her Doctor so badly that she really doesn't care if she gets frostbite or chilblains or the worst brain-freeze in the world. "Blimey," she murmurs to herself.

"I know!" the Doctor replies, as if personally insulted by the use of explosive Christmas decorations, "So anyway, an impressive use of sound systems later, Donna had Lance - her fiancé - give us a lift over to the HC Clements building, the building they worked at, to do a bit of poking around. Took the lift down to the secret basement, found a Torchwood laboratory built under the Thames flood barrier, completely empty save for a few experiments," he pauses, allows his mood to shift toward a serious note for a beat, "I reckon they finally took the hint after Canary Wharf and shut themselves down," he turns his head and lets his eyes roam up the skyscraper.

Rose finally gives up on trying to withstand the cold and launches herself at the door to the motel room, just as the words tear themselves from her mind. "About bloody time," she blurts scathingly, and she hates how bitter she sounds. Part of her expects the Doctor to tell her to ease up on the subject - since the intent of the institute was a good one. He has always said that the road to hell was paved with good intention. And it feels like hell, being here.

"Bit late if you ask me," the Doctor replies, just as coldly, swallowing hard and narrowing his eyes at the climbing building that he leans against, as if the building itself is at fault.

Rose doesn't know why hearing this makes her smile a little bit. She shuts the motel room door behind her and sinks her bare, red toes into the carpet, searching for some warmth. Crossing over to the radiator by the window, she puts her hand to the metal and cringes when she finds that it isn't on.

The Doctor notices that the hiss of wind on her end of the line has ceased, and so he asks, "Have you gone back inside?"

"Yeah, it's freezing out," Rose answers with a shiver, one hand pushing her now tangled hair back, "Mickey's not going to wake up, anyway," she reasons out, glancing over to the sofa where Mickey is sprawled on his back as she moves over to the twin bed and reaches her hand underneath the duvet. She hums happily when she finds that it's still warm. "Go on - you were telling me about your adventure with Donna," she says giddily, as she climbs back into the bed and wraps herself up in the sheets.

The Doctor grins, though he's not really sure why she sounds so happy now. "Right. So anyway, turns out this lab's stocked up with huon particles in test tubes," he begins simply, and he launches into his clarification before Rose can even ask for one, "Huon particles are _ancient. _And I mean dawn-of-time ancient. And Donna was teeming with them - that's what brought her onto the TARDIS in the first place. The only other place there are huon particles is in the heart of the TARDIS. Donna's huon particles activated, and the two sets of particles magnetized."

Rose takes this in with a slow nod, trying to follow his explanation as she sinks down into the bed and curls up her legs to warm them up. "Got you," she says simply, rolling onto her side.

"Right. Huon particles were destroyed though, by the Time Lords - because they unravel the atomic structure. But this lab was filled with particle extrusion equipment. Whoever took over the HC Clements operation after Torchwood went under was manufacturing huon particles, using the water from the Thames as a flat hydrogen base," the Doctor explains, and Rose has no idea how he's remembered all this. Even if it has happened to him just today, she's quite sure that if it had been her, she would have forgotten most of these details already.

Rose immediately begins to feel tired, for the first time tonight. She smiles to herself. This wouldn't be the first time she's fallen asleep to the Doctor's techno-babble. Not that she plans on falling asleep on him. She really does want to hear his story. "So who was making the particles?" she asks, letting the phone sit on her ear and pulling the duvet tighter around her.

The Doctor pushes away from the plaque and begins to pace while he goes on. "Well, that's the exciting bit. The wall in the lab slid up and there was this hole, in the earth. Deep hole, too. Never-ending. Right down to the core of the planet. Oh, plus there were a bunch of pilot fish standing around with guns, and a com-link voice coming in from the ceiling. Lance high-tailed it when he saw the pilot fish."

"Knight in shining armor, there," Rose comments with a yawn.

The Doctor gives a struggling kind of noise, like he wants to say something, but he stops himself and goes on. "And then the real baddie showed up. Great, big spider lady. Empress of the Racnoss. But the Racnoss are extinct, see - they devoured whole planets, they were holding back the advancement of the universe. The first Empires, way back in the Dark Times, went to war with them and wiped them out," he explains, pausing in his pacing to look at the circle he's worn into the snow at his feet.

Rose furrows her brow slightly. "Except for her?" she asks expectantly, the corners of her mouth going up just as her eyelids fall shut.

"Yep. Somehow she survived," the Doctor exhales slowly, and looks over his shoulder to the plaque at the foot of Torchwood Tower. He gives a mild smile and turns away from the skyscraper, deciding he's stood here for too long. He moves on - leaves the tower behind. It feels somewhat healing. Time to go home, he thinks. "And that, in itself, doesn't make her bad, of course. It wasn't 'til we saw that she'd eaten HC Clements - the company owner - that I really thought, 'Hmm, this is dodgy'."

Rose snorts a laugh, the feeling returning to her fingers and toes. "I'd love to see that in a Conan-Doyle book," she teases bemusedly. Some energy returns to her and she decides to interlude with an interesting snippet. "Actually, tell you what; the Sherlock Holmes books don't exist in this universe. Well, they do, but they're the Arthur Conan-Doyle adventures, written by Sherlock Holmes."

The Doctor exclaims his amused surprise at this, as he walks back toward where the TARDIS is parked. "Really?" he queries interestedly, mulling this over. "Bit of a shame, that. 'Watson and Conan-Doyle' doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same," he laments with a smile.

"Actually, I don't think Watson's in them. Pete's reading them, see? Apparently he doesn't get carsick," Rose yawns again and this time, the phone falls from her ear, round the back of her head and into the pool of her hair at the nape of her neck. She reaches over her shoulder to retrieve it.

"… Absurd," the Doctor is saying, when she gets the phone back to her ear, "Watson's arguably the best character - and how's the great detective supposed to get by without his assistant?" he queries, still smiling.

"Suppose he'll have to do without," Rose says plainly, slowly opening her eyes and staring forward, unable to help but notice the parallels.

The Doctor falls silent, noticing the irony as well. He draws a breath, walking along the nighttime streets of London on Christmas Eve, breathing mist out into the snow, and his smile falls away into a hard line. "He shouldn't have to," he replies tersely, brows coming down as the shape of the TARDIS comes into view, up ahead.

Rose sighs into her pillow and hugs a bulge in the duvet to her chest. "No. He shouldn't," she agrees with a defeated smile. There's another pause, before she lightens the mood. "So, tell us about the spider lady."

The Doctor manages a small smile, and gives a chuckle. "Sure you're not going to fall asleep on me?" he inquires expectantly, having noticed all her yawning on the other end.

Rose grins, shutting her eyes again. "I can't make any promises," she admits groggily, hugging the duvet as if it's a teddy bear, "Haven't had much sleep lately, you know? What with the incessant 'Rose, Rose, come to Norway' going on in my head," she adds in teasingly, and when the Doctor laughs on the other end, she goes on, "Which reminds me - if you got the mobile line working, how come you couldn't just text me to come here?" she asks, half-jokingly.

The Doctor reaches into the pocket of his suit trousers to retrieve his TARDIS key. "Well, I only got it working while we were talking on the beach. The gap I used to project my image to you is the same gap that the phone link goes through. It's not quite closed. It's certainly not big enough for physical dimension hopping, but the audio link just about manages to get through," he explains, sounding slightly chuffed with his own brilliance, as he slips his key into the lock of the police box and steps inside.

Rose opens her mouth to ask exactly what kind of technical stuff he did to get a repeating message into her head, across the void, but she decides she's far too tired to listen to his answer. On the other end of the phone, she hears a familiar kind of echo, and she grins again. "You're in the TARDIS, aren't you?" she hums out giddily. "I can hear her."

The Doctor shuts the door of the TARDIS behind him, and laughs lightly into his mobile. "Yep. Home sweet home," he wanders up the ramp, toward the console, taking off his coat and draping it over one of the coral struts. "I just came from Torchwood Tower," he says, his smile drooping. He'll have to tell her, eventually. It might as well be now. Rose doesn't seem to want to talk about Torchwood, but just the same - he has to tell her. "There's a list of the dead, on a big stone plaque. Your name is on it."

Rose furrows her brow and swallows. "Right," she says slowly, as it dawns on her. Of course. She's been missing from the scene of the Battle of Canary Wharf for months and months. Of course it would seem that she's dead. "And Mum and Mickey, too, yeah?" she asks tightly.

The Doctor seats himself on the jump seat opposite the console. "Mm," he replies with a sigh, "So many people died, and you're missing, so …" he leans back in the seat. "Suppose there's no plaque for people stuck in parallel universes," he adds, with a pensive tilt of the head.

Rose gives a small laugh. "Suppose not. Now, are you gonna tell that story, or what?" she urges him on in humored exasperation.

"Right! Spider lady!" The Doctor sniffs hard, thinking back to where he left off. "Okay, so the Empress set her pilot fish boys to shoot me dead, since they only needed Donna. And that was a bit problematic since, well, I'm quite fond of being alive. So I did something incredibly clever and reversed the polarity of the huon particles in Donna so that the TARDIS materialized around us," he hums happily in his throat, quite pleased.

Rose makes the same noise, somewhat impressed. Okay. So he really is quite flash. Not that she'll ever admit that - not to him, anyway. Well. Not anytime soon.

The Doctor lifts his feet and puts them on the console in front of him. "Go on. Admit it - you're impressed," he drawls exuberantly, his mouth forming a clustered kind of smirk.

"Well, I never saw it - you could be making it up," Rose retorts with a flippant smirk of her own.

The Doctor exclaims his affront at such an implication. "Rose Tyler, are you accusing me of telling fish stories?" he demands, trying to feign seriousness but not really managing it. He gives a high-pitched laugh on accident, and then clears his throat, but Rose has already heard it and explodes in fits of giggles. "I wouldn't tell porkies just to impress you, what'd you take me for?"

"Great big intergalactic show-off?" Rose answers, her giggles dying down.

"Anyway!" the Doctor cuts in quickly, trying to reel the conversation in so that he can finish his story before Rose dozes off, "After that, I took Donna back to the dawn of planet Earth, to find out what it was that the Empress was looking for at the center of the planet, down the big hole. Did you know that the first rock, the biggest asteroid, what-have-you, of your planet is actually a Racnoss ship?"

Rose is immediately confused. "_What_?" she asks, sure she's heard him wrong. She wouldn't be surprised - there is a faint crackling on the line, and it's only a matter of time before it distorts someone's words.

"It was hiding from the war, with the Empires, see?" the Doctor clarifies reasonably, "Just switched the gravity engines to max, and Bam - instant planet. The perfect disguise, really. Then, the ship powered down completely, and waited the war out."

Rose's brows jump up toward her hairline and she wonders aloud, "Maybe I should let Pete and his lot know. Tell 'em to keep an eye on things around Christmas time. In case the same thing happens in this universe too," she exhales thoughtfully.

The Doctor sounds reluctant, but he concedes, "Wouldn't be a terrible idea." Then, the corners of his mouth going up a bit, he continues, "Maybe you should tell them a bit closer to the time. Tell them you got an anonymous tip - wouldn't want them to think you could tell the future or anything," the Doctor warns lightheartedly.

Rose snorts a laugh, but yawns halfway through it. It's strange, she thinks, how moments ago, she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to fall asleep, and now she's worried that she _will _fall asleep. The Doctor's never-ending reserve of energy isn't doing much to keep her awake, either. "Go on," she murmurs tiredly.

The Doctor smiles warmly, realizing that she's going to fall asleep long before he finishes the story. "How about I tell you the rest in the morning, after you've had some rest? Sound like you could use it. Or were you planning on using me as a bedtime storyteller?" he arches his brow at nothing in particular, his smile breaking into a grin.

Rose whines indecisively for a beat, and then speaks, sounding obstinate. "No, I'll stay awake."

"Want me to read 'Goodnight Moon'?" he teases with a decidedly unmanly giggle.

Rose would roll her eyes, but they keep falling shut. She simply reminds him, "You know, I could hang up on you."

The Doctor's laughter is like music to her ears. "Fine, fine. Okay, so, then the Empress and her cronies sort of figured out my neat little trick and used the huon particles to bring us back to the underground lab. Luckily, I was able to use the extrapolator to bump the TARDIS a few yards out from where we'd have ended up without it. I figured out that the Empress was using the huon particles - living huon particles - in Donna, to bring the Racnoss at the center of the Earth out of hibernation," he explains, and suddenly notices how comfortable it is to sit down. He doesn't think he's realized before how soft this chair is. No wonder Rose fell asleep on it all those times in the past.

"Mm-hmm," Rose replies after a moment.

The Doctor is already counting down in his head. He'll give her about … oh, a minute? A minute, and then she'll be asleep. And she really is using him as a bedtime storyteller, but he doesn't mind. Maybe she finds the sound of his voice comforting, in which case, he's quite complimented - thrilled, even. Besides. If he helps Rose Tyler fall asleep tonight simply by talking, then he'll talk all night.

So he tells the whole story - all the way through to the part where he and Donna end up standing and looking at a completely drained river Thames and laughing their arses off. But he doesn't tell her that he asked Donna to come with him, because she's dozing off and he thinks that's something they should talk about some other time. He falls silent, listening for a reply from Rose.

Rose exhales a contented snore, and then another. The Doctor sighs through his smile, and listens for a few moments more to the sounds of some obviously much-needed sleep. "Night, Rose," he says warmly, and wishes he could give her a kiss on the forehead, but he doesn't let that bother him. The Doctor takes phone from his ear and hangs up.

It's not much, of course, he thinks, studying the mobile in his hand, but he really is glad that he has This.

* * *

**A/N: Chapter One! What do you guys think? I don't do much with present tense, so this is kind of different for me, and I've caught myself slipping into past tense a few times already. Let me know if you catch any mistakes. And review! Please review!**


	3. Smith & Jones

The next morning, Rose is braiding her hair tight to her head so she won't have to bother with drying it after her shower, with her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, when the mobile vibrates on the bedside table. Mickey is still asleep, only he seems to have found his way onto the floor now. Rose is already dressed, planning to get breakfast before any of the others can even talk to her. But when she grabs the phone, she completely forgets that she's not a morning person.

"Hello?" she asks hopefully.

"Good morning," The Doctor replies cheerfully, and he sounds giddy.

"Mor-," Rose begins, then chokes and coughs, and then reaches up and removes her toothbrush from her mouth to try again, "Morn-," she tilts her head back to keep herself from spitting toothpaste all over the place, and that won't allow her to speak, so she simply grunts and marches back into the bathroom. She can practically _hear _the Doctor grinning, and promptly remembers again why she hates mornings. "Shuh-up," she garbles out sharply, before dipping her head and spitting into the sink.

"How very eloquent of you, Dame Rose," the Doctor chuckles out, and she can imagine him giving a shallow, sarcastic bow of the head and perhaps a little flourish. While Rose finishes brushing her teeth, the Doctor goes on, "How's my timing?" with an expectant, accidental squeak in his voice. "I gave you time to shower and get dressed and whatnot - gauged it perfectly, am I right?"

Rose simply snorts a laugh, running the faucet, taking the phone from her ear to slurp some cold water from the stream. She swills it in her mouth, and then spits it out into the sink, before giving herself a smile in the mirror to check the whiteness of her teeth. The thought that occurs to her in that moment falls out of her mouth like a berry from a basket. "You know, some people would think it creepy - you knowing exactly how long my sleep cycle is," she points out.

Sleep cycle. It's a term he's always used, of course; she only picked it up because on the TARDIS, whenever she (and other human companions like Jack and Adam and Mickey) would go to sleep, the Doctor refused to call it nighttime. Time, of course, is all relative. So they call it a sleep cycle.

The Doctor scoffs, and Rose pictures him rolling his eyes. "When you say 'people', I take it you're referring to humans, yes? Twenty-first century humans - who still think that the cupboard under the sink is a good hiding place for alien sweets," he clears his throat meaningfully, and Rose feels her stomach both sinking and fluttering. "Yeah, I found them," he adds on, bemused. "Quite a collection, by the way. You're to be commended," and he pops something into his mouth.

Rose pouts, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, stalking out of the bathroom and moving over to where her combat boots sit by the motel room door. She slips her feet into them without bothering with the already-knotted laces, and feels a smile jumping onto her face. "Took you long enough," she teases lightheartedly, "They've been there since before you regenerated. Figured you'd never touch the cupboard where the cleaning supplies are."

The Doctor pops another little something into his mouth, wherever he is. Rose can already tell what kind of 'something' this one is, too, by the way his voice comes out around it. It's mushy, like jelly bears, or maybe jelly beans. Oh. She knows what that is. It's those sparkly, lemony bubble-shaped sweets, with the soft, squishy goo inside. He pauses, though, and his voice doesn't sound easy, when he says the next sentence. "Well … got to tidy up after myself now," he sniffs hard, flippant. There's a brief silence, and before Rose can say anything, the Doctor launches into babble-mode. "Right! Yesterday's story! Where were we?"

Rose tries to recall, grabbing her coat from the bedpost and pulling it on. She goes to the window and throws open the curtains, letting early morning sunlight in. It hits her face, bright and warm, and she smiles grandly, looking out at the glow of sunshine on the cars and buildings outside. "Spiders in a bathtub," she says, because that sounds about right. "Something about baby spiders?"

The Doctor pops the lemony bubble in his mouth - Rose hears it. "Is that where you dropped off?" he asks thoughtfully, as if he's mulling it over. "I thought you heard the bit about draining the Thames."

Rose vaguely remembers this bit. She's not actually quite sure how it all went - she might actually be remembering it out of order. Oh, well. As she leaves the motel room, her key stuffed into her coat pocket, and shuts the door behind her, she says simply, "Yeah, I think I remember that. Dunno," she pauses, and grins suddenly, because for a change, it's actually _warm _outside. She stalks to her left, down to the steps, and jogs down them, toward a vending machine sitting in the sun. "What happened to Donna?" she asks easily, blinking as she steps out of the shade again and the sun hits her eyes. She inwardly congratulates herself on how easily the words come out. Maybe he won't think too deeply about the question - will answer in his usual, flippant way, and then continue his story.

But there's a brief intermission in the conversation, and Rose's hand stills over the buttons on the Norwegian vending machine outside the motel. He's the Doctor. Of course he thinks about the question. Of course he reads between the lines. Of course he sees what she's really asking.

Because Rose isn't there anymore. He needs someone - she knows this. She knows he needs someone to keep him company, someone to run with, someone to show the universe to. Maybe she knows it even better than he does. _'Who's gonna hold his hand now?' _she hears her own voice echoing back inside her mind - a whisper from the past. And that particular adventure, the Olympics, seem so long ago, even though it's still in the future. The spoken question is vague, but the one Rose is really asking is sharp and precise - clear. _Did you invite her along?_

_Have I been replaced?_

_Do you still need me?_

The Doctor, in this moment, is actually sitting in pinstriped pajamas in a hospital bed in London, months - relatively speaking - after Christmas, for the world around him. For him, Christmas was only twelve hours ago. Well. Twelve hours, a sightseeing trip through the Emerald Strip, a banana-on-toast breakfast and several alterations to the toaster ago. He's investigating plasma coils around it. For him, it's slightly earlier than it is for her - nearly six in the morning. He checked in late last night, claiming severe abdominal pains - with some brilliant acting, if he says so himself. The faint sounds of snores, from other patients in the room, are at the edge of his awareness.

There's a familiar blue bed robe tied on over his pajamas, and his pockets are filled with Rose's alien candy, in place of the fruits that they were once home to.

He's got a good two or three hours before morning rounds reach him. He's timed it perfectly, so he has some time to talk to Rose before there are doctors around to tell him not to use his mobile in the building. And she's waiting for his answer.

Of course, he's the Doctor. He can answer her question and still not have to tell her something that might hurt her. "She went home. Home for Christmas," he says easily, smiling, as his mind returns to thoughts of Christmas at Jackie's flat at the Powell Estate. "She'll be alright," he adds absentmindedly.

He's not sure whether or not Rose sounds relieved. "Right," she breathes, feeding some euros into the vending machine before her. It spits out her sausage roll with an abrasive buzzing noise, and she stoops to pluck it out of the machine, moving a hand to tear open the plastic wrapper. She catches the inside of her lower lip between her left eyeteeth, and draws up her shoulders apprehensively. "So you're …" she begins, but then decides not to go there. She doesn't want to know, not really, and maybe he doesn't want to say.

"Still on my own?" the Doctor finishes for her, and the corners of his mouth tilt up in a sad, brief smile. He can hear her inhaling uncomfortably at his ending her sentence, and he knows that he's hit the nail on the head. "Yeah," he answers simply, curtly, but not coldly, tilting his head back slightly and letting his eyes find the hospital room's ceiling. Rose falls silent, so he goes on, keeping his voice easy and comforting, "I only take the best, after all."

He can practically see the smile returning to her face - can tell by the way she breathes out. This was indeed the right thing to say. Of course, he did invite Donna, and he is indeed disappointed that she turned down the offer. She's not the first to decline an offer of time and space from him, but it's a sting, nonetheless - especially so soon after losing Rose. But Rose doesn't need to know that he invited Donna. She might think something daft like that he was thinking of replacing her.

Rose is smiling now, but she's somewhat conflicted. Yes, she'd glad that he hasn't jumped right onto his next companion, leaving her in the dust like he did to Sarah Jane, but at the same time, the Doctor is on his own. And that's bad, isn't it? Doesn't that mean he eats breakfast on his own, in an empty kitchen? That he doesn't get to think out loud because there's nobody listening? She doesn't want him alone.

And it's never occurred to her before.

"Still," she says, keeping her tone level, "I suppose some company would be nice," and then she bites into her sausage roll.

The Doctor considers this in silence, his brows coming down a little bit as his hand absently slips into his robe pocket to draw out a rubbery red sweet. "Yeah?" he asks quietly.

Rose smiles, and it feels bittersweet on her face. "Wouldn't be the end of the world," she answers earnestly. "I'd know. I've already seen that," she adds on with a giggle.

The Doctor smiles too, giving a single, weak laugh, before popping the rubbery sweet into his mouth. It's odd- no, strange. No, Ironic. Yes, ironic. It's ironic that hearing her telling him it's okay to invite someone else along only makes him appreciate her company all the more. There's something on his tongue, a want to say something appreciative of her, to let her know how thankful he is to know her, but it dies there. Because if there's one thing the Doctor is good at doing, it's stopping himself from telling Rose Tyler what she should already know.

It's like when you suddenly realize something - like bananas. Suddenly you realize how much you like something, how much you _really, really _like something. And you say to yourself 'D'you know what? I love bananas.' One day, it's just a fruit. And the next, you really appreciate it. Except, when it's a person, you realize that they have all these nifty little quirks that you also really, really, ridiculously like.

The Doctor likes how bananas are a good source of potassium. It's handy, really, because not a lot of foodstuffs have that added bonus. And dopamine! They're packed with dopamine - a natural inducer of endorphins! That is so nifty!

The Doctor's not exactly sure how much it says about him that he realized how he felt about Rose Tyler in the exact same way he realized how much he liked bananas. One day, he had been rifling through the TARDIS kitchen, in the lonely days after the Time War, looking for something to eat, and had found a banana.

And it had just been there, a blunt realization. _"I love bananas."_

And the same with Rose. One day, he had just been doing his regular thing - running, saving the world, with her at his side. She had been making fun of him, in fact - implying that he didn't 'dance'. And then, she had been dancing with him, grinning like an idiot, the way she did, and it had just occurred to him. Rose Tyler, in his arms, and it had felt quite wonderful, and his mind had simply supplied, _"I love Rose."_

"Doctor?" Rose asks, mouth full, sounding suspicious. "Are you there?"

"Hm?" he suddenly replies, blinking back into the moment, realizing that he's been silent for just over thirty seconds. "Oh, yes, right, sorry. Zoned out there for a moment," he clears his throat awkwardly, and lifts a hand to rub at the spot just under his nose.

Rose laughs, wandering around the parking lot outside the Norwegian motel, absently running her fingers across the cars. "That's a first for you," she points out, sounding pleased. "Then again, you _are _nine hundred years old."

"Oi!" the Doctor squeaks out in protest, genuinely slighted by this. Rose begins to laugh into whatever it is he can hear her eating on the other end of the phone, and it's not a giggle, but a shameless cackle. She must be outside - otherwise she'd have woken Mickey. The Doctor is suddenly aware of how loud his own voice just was, and cringes at the sound of one of the other patients grumbling in their sleep. A slow smile crosses his face and he arches one brow to drawl out, smarmily, "When nine hundred years old _you _reach," he whispers pointedly, "look as good, you will not," his eyebrows jump suggestively, though he knows she isn't there to appreciate it.

Rose's laughter only increases, and she snorts loudly, nearly choking. "God, you did not just say that," she breathes, and it sounds like she's wiping her eyes from laughing so hard. "I can't believe you said that," she hiccups out a few more chuckles.

The Doctor smiles warmly. "I can't believe I don't say it more often. I should have used it as an ice breaker that time we were on Phaxus Nine and that bloke tried to start a fight over the size of my ears," he thinks aloud, keeping his voice down to a hushed hiss. That was an incident and a half, he recalls. Not at all justified, but understandable. The people on Phaxus Nine had been earless. He'd stuck out like a sore thumb there.

Rose giggles, but then speaks, lowering her voice carefully. "Why are you whispering?" she asks, and while she sounds both curious and suspicious, there's an element of intrigued interest to her question that makes the Doctor smile.

"I'm investigating some plasma coils that popped up around Royal Hope hospital," he explains reservedly, waiting for her to figure it out on her own.

Rose tilts her head back knowingly, "How better to infiltrate a hospital than by admitting yourself as a patient?" she says slowly, but then brings her brows down a bit, narrowing her eyes against the sunlight. "But isn't that dangerous? The first thing they do when you go to A-and-E is smack a stethoscope against your chest. You've got two hearts. How did you get around that?"

The Doctor is beaming. Two steps ahead, as always. "Well," he drawls quietly, his voice a husky whisper, "Human physicians don't usually check the right side of the chest for a heartbeat, thankfully," he raises a hand to his chest and pats the spot over his right heart proudly.

Rose has found herself standing beside Pete's jeep, and casually leans her hip against the bonnet, munching down the last bite of her sausage roll. "So you're actually sitting in a hospital bed right now," she muses aloud, as she swallows. "Whispering because … there are other people around, sleeping?" she reasons out.

"Bingo," the Doctor answers, smiling.

"Blimey, you must be bored out of your mind."

"You have no idea," the Doctor agrees, reaching into his pocket for another piece of candy, dragging out a long, red, plastic-looking sugary cable. This sweet is decidedly _not _an alien one. This is from Jackie Tyler's sweet-jar-on-top-of-the-fridge. It has a sour kind of sweetness to it, when he puts it on his tongue.

It's at this exact moment that the lights come on in the hospital room, and the Doctor's brows lift. The other patients seen not to notice, still sleeping happily, but he can hear the corridors outside coming to life, doctor milling about and conversations beginning. Royal Hope Hospital is awake. With chagrin, he also realizes that maybe he shouldn't be on his phone - considering the 'turn off all mobile phones' sign on the wall.

He doesn't really want to hang up until he absolutely has to.

But then he hears footsteps coming for the door into this room. It's that nurse that felt him up yesterday, he can tell through the little window in the door, but he's not really worried about that. He doesn't want to hang up, but now he hasn't got a choice. He can't blow cover now - he doesn't know how long he'll have to be here. "Er, Rose, can I call you back, later?" he asks apologetically.

Rose is dusting crumbs from her shirtfront, but she suddenly stops when she hears this, disappointed. She knows he has to go - he wouldn't end the call if he didn't have to - but she still wishes she could have talked to him for longer. Or better yet, be with him while he saves the day. "Um, yeah. Sure, 'course," she replies simply, putting on a smile. "No probs. I'd best go wake the others up, anyway."

"Right," the Doctor answers deliberately.

And then the line goes dead - a long, drawn-out hum that frustrates Rose right down to her core. No goodbye, no 'have a good day'. Nothing. But he's never been one to say stuff like that, anyway, she supposes. In fact, he's never once said 'have a good day' to her, because they always did stuff together. Rose exhales heavily. She's thinking too hard about this.

She has to get everyone up and on the road again, otherwise they won't cover enough ground today to get back to London before mum's next ultrasound appointment. Rose takes her phone from her ear and puts it in her pocket, thumb hitting the 'hang-up' button, while keeping her eyes away from the screen, and turns around to head for the motel.

The day wears on. After a proper breakfast, Mickey takes the first shift behind the wheel, while Pete catches up on some sleep in the passenger seat - apparently he's been having some trouble sleeping. With Jackie beside her in the back seat, Rose listens as her mother explains that this universe's version of her father doesn't sleep at night until he's worried himself into exhaustion. He's head of operations at Torchwood now; he thinks and stews and worries and stresses about every single project going on back at the base while he isn't there. Rose doesn't care though.

She's trapped in this universe - and it's partly his fault. Sometimes she wishes he hadn't appeared at Canary Wharf, and that he hadn't 'saved' her from the void. She doesn't know what's in that empty space between dimensions, but sometimes, she's completely sure that it has to be better than this. And then, other times …

Mickey is repeating, word-for-word, exactly what Jackie just said to him, in a pitchy imitation, to prove to her that he did, in fact, hear her. Pete is snoring loudly - not saying anything, which is just how Rose likes him. Jackie is telling Mickey off for making fun of her, and threatening that he's not too old for a slap. The radio is playing an Ian Dury song, listing reasons to be joyful, which Rose doesn't think has quite the same ring as 'Reasons To Be Cheerful'.

She smiles weakly and rests the back of her head against her seat, turning her eyes to the rolling scenery out the window. Maybe it doesn't completely make up for not being able to hold the Doctor's hand, or see new stars every day - but it's not nothing.

Jackie has a very good idea, as day turns to night. "We could get a company zeppelin to come out here and get us. Now we're headed home, we know our destination," she doesn't say _'we're not following some vague beckoning whispered into anyone's head' _but it's certainly there. "We could be home in two weeks. We could laze about on a blimp instead of driving in shifts all the time, 'til we get home."

"Not a bad idea," Rose allows, because she's all for cutting the trip back short.

Pete spends the rest of the drive talking to someone at Vitex, seeing about getting a zeppelin out to them. They can. There's a Vitex branch in Bergen, and they can get a zeppelin to their location by morning. Rose pulls the jeep into the parking lot of a slightly more up-market hotel than their last stop was. It's four-star, and they've even got room service.

As soon as she's out of the car, Rose draws out her mobile and checks for any missed calls or messages. Even as her legs nearly collapse under her - having gone numb from driving for so long - she's more disappointed to find that the Doctor hasn't called.

Pete checks them into the hotel. Apparently they've snagged the last three rooms available, all on separate floors from one another.

It's only seven minutes after she gets into her room that her phone rings, but seven minutes is more than enough time for Rose to get anxious - more than enough time for her to worry that something's happened to him, for her to wonder if he's going to be busy all night and if she should just stop waiting and go to bed. And certainly more than enough time for Rose to remember that she hasn't eaten anything since stopping for lunch this afternoon. She's lying on her stomach over the double bed, talking to room service, when her mobile goes off.

"… Oh, bugger," Rose mutters, glancing over to her jacket, on the armchair - its pocket visibly vibrating. "Um, no, yeah. No, you didn't hear me wrong. Yes, I want vinegar on my chips. Yes, like malt vinegar," she tries to wrap up quickly. The voice of the surprisingly English-speaking waitress on the other end is nasal and annoying, and Rose resists the urge to curse the woman out. "Alright, thanks. Put it on my tab."

Finally she slams down the receiver, throws herself from the bed and darts for the armchair, grabbing her jacket and flipping it in her hands until the phone falls out onto the floor. She ducks down, nearly hitting her face on the arm of the chair, and grabs the phone, hitting the 'answer' button and bringing it to her ear.

"Er, hello?" the voice of Rose Tyler spills into the Doctor's ear where he's dancing around the console, reaching for buttons and hauling himself over the panel to get at something on the other side of the controls. She sounds slightly breathless, like she's hurried to answer the phone. He's got some time - and it's probably been, oh, eighteen hours for her? Since they last spoke? - and he's quite sure he wants to spend it talking to Rose.

But first there's something he needs to get off his chest. It's been bugging him all day. He's been half-considering inviting the brilliant Martha Jones for a quick trip in time and space since he met her today, and, though encouraged by Rose's words, earlier, telling him that she didn't mind if he took another companion, he's had this niggling little feeling the back of his head, like he was betraying her somehow.

"D'you know what you said earlier?" the Doctor says quickly, struggling to keep his voice nonchalant - and he shouldn't be struggling with that, after all, because it's his single best talent in this body. Rose's voice laughs lightly into his ear, and he doesn't know what she thinks is funny, because he's practically _anxious. _And he doesn't get anxious. "About company. Specifically, me having company. On the TARDIS. Remember that?" he asks hopefully.

Rose's brows go up as she sinks into the armchair in the hotel room. "Yeah?" she replies slowly, curiously.

The Doctor isn't sure if she's feigning that casual tone, or if she really is so brilliant that she isn't in the slightest bit annoyed at him replacing her like this. No! No, he most certainly is not replacing her. Martha is just coming along for one trip. That's it. One trip to repay her for her help today. "Well," he suddenly says, the word short and pausing. He swallows, looking for the right phrase. "You were right," he decides on.

Yes, definitely the right thing to say. From what he's learnt in his nine hundred years of life, there is nothing more pleasing to a female - of any species - than hearing her correctness acknowledged. This is most definitely a good place to start.

"Oh?" Rose replies after a beat, sounding suspicious. "So you invited someone along?" she surmises, the words coming out slow and almost unreadable. The Doctor knows Rose Tyler extremely well, and he can read her like a book. He's sure of this. If he's correct, then the reason he can't tell what Rose is thinking right now is probably because she hasn't decided how she feels on the matter yet.

"Yep," the Doctor answers, popping the last letter, before tilting his head to one side as he yanks down a lever on the TARDIS console, "Well, sort of. Just for one trip. Sort of a 'thanks for saving my life earlier' thing."

Rose suddenly sounds amused, which is a great relief to the Doctor. "Wow, you really are useless on your own," she leans back in the armchair and hooks one ankle over the other. Her stomach lets out a growl. Oh, she can't wait for room service to get here. "So who's your new friend?" she asks curiously.

The Doctor is about to let on that he didn't get captured on accident - that he nearly gave up his life, and this body (which he really is quite fond of, and knows she is too), in order to save the lives of every person in Royal Hope Hospital today - but somehow 'I offered myself up as a sacrifice' doesn't seem like a good thing to say. At least not right after 'Hey, by the way, there's someone else using your kettle right now'.

"Martha. Martha Jones, she's a trainee doctor at Royal Hope," he replies easily, still testing the waters.

"How did she save your life?" Rose goes on interestedly, sounding genuinely curious. In her hotel room, she reaches down and pulls her calves up into the chair with her until she sits cross-legged in it. Absently, she plucks at the toe of a sock until she finally gives in and pulls it off, discarding it and wiggling her toes. The other sock soon follows. "I might be wrong, but 'plasma coils' don't sound all that scary."

The Doctor gives a light chuckle. "They're not. Not really. Well, depends - if you reverse the energy circuits, they can manufacture a charged gravitational field. If that field was too strong, it could pull your skull down into your ribcage like in cartoons."

"Ouch," Rose pulls a face at the thought, drawing up her shoulders with a shudder.

"Yep. But that's not what the coils were for. Turns out, they were markers for an H20 scoop," the Doctor explains, flipping a switch on the TARDIS and frowning when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. He's reaching over for the rubber mallet sitting on the panel to his left, when the switch activates and the ship flies along a smoother course through the vortex. "A H20 scoop uses the water in the soil beneath a structure to uproot the building and isolate it so it can be relocated."

"Relocated as in teleported? Like a transmat?" Rose asks, rubbing at her cold feet with a warm palm.

"Like a transmat," the Doctor agrees, "So, the scoop isolated the hospital, and it ended up on the moon. Neutral territory, fair game - loopholes in the Shadow Proclamation, you understand. Now, here's the interesting bit-," he is saying, when he is interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on a door on Rose's end of the line. "Who's that?" he asks, without thinking.

"Room service," Rose says happily, grinning and getting up. "Blimey, that was fast. Oh, I'm starving," she crosses the distance between the armchair and the door in a few seconds and fiddles with the door handle for a moment before she finally manages to get it open. She pulls it back and peeks out first. There's a young man with a steel trolley standing in front of her, smiling awkwardly. There's a covered plate on the trolley, and Rose's mouth begins to water.

"What's on the menu?" the Doctor asks curiously.

Rose pulls the door open further, and smiles her thanks at the man in front of her. "Fish and chips," she says slowly, stepping back as the man pushes the trolley into the room and approaches the table by the armchair. He puts the plate down, adds a knife and fork, wrapped in a napkin, nods at Rose, and then leaves without a word, taking the trolley with him. Rose furrows her brow. "Uh, thanks!" she calls after the man, but he doesn't answer, closing the door behind himself. "That was weird. He didn't even ask for a tip," she murmurs to herself.

The Doctor hums his own surprise. "Busy night, maybe," he surmises aloud, as the TARDIS drones to life around him, nearing their destination. "What time is it over there?"

Rose checks her watch. "Just past nine," she answers absently, dropping back down into the armchair. She holds the phone between her cheek and shoulder for a moment so she can pull the table closer to the table. She lifts the lid on her food and gives a long exhale of happiness as the familiar smell of familiar food reaches her nose. "Oh, cooked to perfection," she purrs, elated, as she slides her fork from the napkin and stabs it into a chip.

The Doctor finds that he's a little bit hungry, thinking of fish and chips, and pushes his lips together oddly. He can almost smell the food, too. When was the last time he ate? Oh, yes. Yesterday. Hospital food, he remembers; some kind of microwave meal that rivaled airplane food in cheapness. Oh, what he'd give for some fish and chips, wrapped in newspaper. He shakes his head. "Anyway!" he exclaims readily, "the hospital was teleported by the Judoon."

"What's that, then?" Rose asks, stuffing a few more chips into her mouth. She is pleased to discover that the waitress did, in fact, put vinegar on her chips, and has put just the right amount on, too; not too much, not too little. Perfect. Her stomach gurgles, even as she eats.

"They're like bounty hunters. Alien bounty hunters. With the right kind of money, and the right amount, they can be sent off to find escaped criminals for any known planet in the universe. They moved the hospital to the moon, to make it neutral territory, so they could infiltrate and find the perpetrator they were looking for," the Doctor explains quickly, and he can hear Rose audibly enjoying her food - with emphatic little noises of happiness and pleasure - which makes him hungry both for food and, well … anyway. Other things to think about.

Rose pauses in her eating, though still sounds like she's got food in her mouth, and asks, "Hold on, there was an alien in the hospital, that alien bounty hunters were looking for?" with a suspicious tinge in her tone.

"It wasn't me," the Doctor says, already knowing what she's thinking, "It was someone else. This plasmavore - a shape-shifter. She looked like a little old lady; it was a brilliant disguise, really. Nobody thinks, 'oh, that old lady looks dangerous'. Unfortunately, the thing about plasmavores is that they don't just change their appearance - they change their biology, too," he says pointedly, and pauses for a moment as the TARDIS thumps to a halt. "So-," he starts, but Rose interrupts.

Apparently, she recognizes the sound of the TARDIS landing, and is immediately interested. "Where are you? Where are you going? Oh, wait, hang on; it's Martha's first trip, isn't it? Where are you taking her?" she asks, sounding bubbly, in a much more energetic mood now that she's eating.

The Doctor chuckles, the corners of his mouth lifting up, and swaps his mobile from one hand to the other, so he can take a glance at his watch, as it automatically changes to the local time, thanks to a bit of tweaking. It's six PM, local time - and they've landed in Shakespearean London. There'll hopefully be a pub around, where he can get something to eat. "Don't you mean 'when'?" he asks chidingly, smirking.

"Yeah, that too," Rose says dismissively, waving a hand.

"London, for starters. But, the date is fifteen ninety-nine, and we're going to see Shakespeare at the Globe theatre," the Doctor says easily, exhaling through his nose. "What do you think? Fun? A lot of people think Shakespeare is boring. I think he's brilliant."

Rose allows with a shrug, "Just hope that it's not one of the tragic ones, like Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet. Doesn't he have a few funny ones?"

The Doctor is pleasantly surprised at this. "He does indeed," he answers emphatically, grinning, "I didn't think you were interested in Shakespeare," he remarks aloud.

"I'm not. My comprehensive school made me revise some Shakespeare for my English GCSE exam. Oh, plus, I saw this 'Taming Of The Shrew' movie with mum, once, when I was little. That was quite good. The whole 'tongue-in-tail' bit had mum shooing me out of the room," Rose recalls fondly, giggling under her breath, before stuffing another chip into her mouth. "But Macbeth was _torture_,"she says seriously.

The Doctor hums interestedly, nodding. "Well, I've never been to see his work. Not during his lifetime, anyway. Should be interesting. The man was brilliant, the great wordsmith. Honestly, do you know how many words you use today that were just _made up_ by William Shakespeare?"

"Not a clue," Rose answers with a lighthearted laugh, jamming the phone between her ear and shoulder again so she can cut up her battered fish. "Okay, enough about Shakespeare. You were telling me about an alien pensioner being hunted by alien bounty hunters," she jokes, before stuffing some batter into her mouth.

"Sounds a lot more impressive than it really was," the Doctor muses aloud. "The Judoon are _hulking _people, though, mind. Huge. They're taller than me by about a foot, and it's almost impossible to tell the difference between a male and a female. Once, ages ago, but actually a few thousand years in the future, I got fined for trying to compliment a Judoon on being muscular," he shakes his head, leaning against the console and glancing into the back halls of the ship, wondering where Martha is. He pulls a face. Maybe she fell over during the flight. "Apparently you're not supposed to call a male Judoon muscular. They're supposed to be … lean," he settles on that word, though he doesn't think it's the right one.

"Fined? How can they fine you? I thought they were bounty hunters," Rose asks, reaching to the upper-right corner of her plate, only to find that she doesn't have a drink. She frowns momentarily.

"They are, but the thing about being a lawmaker is that you … well, make the law. Intergalactic bullies, if you will. They're logical though, so they know they can't go about killing people for saying the wrong thing. So they fined me."

"How much?"

"A lot."

"What would've happened if you didn't pay?"

"Then? Then they would've shot me."

"Oh, nice," Rose snorts sarcastically.

"Very nice," he concurs, with a chuckle. "Anyway, so since this plasmavore could assimilate the biological makeup of a human - by sucking the blood out of one of them," he pauses for a moment, the words tasting bitter in his mouth, "When the Judoon scanned her, she registered as human. And when they scanned _me, _I _didn't_ register as human. There was a lot of confusion and running away," he lifts a hand and scratches the back of his head, suddenly aware of sounding a bit like a bumbling idiot here, the way he's explaining the day's events.

Rose laughs. "Isn't there always?" she queries playfully, but she doesn't sound at all patronizing, which is a comfort.

"Yeah …" he drawls thoughtfully, an awkward smile forming on his face. "So, er, the other problem was that the hospital was running out of air. No pressure or anything," he gives a half-chuckle. "Also, the sonic screwdriver got fried when I blasted her slab with radiation."

Rose almost spits out her food, and when she manages not to do that, she nearly chokes on it. "What?!" she blurts out, mouth full. "You _broke _the sonic screwdriver?" she asks seriously, eyes widening. Her mind reels at the idea. She hates to think it, but he is sort of useless without his sonic screwdriver. It's gotten him out of many a jam in the past. She can think of twelve times, just off the top of her head, where he'd have died without it.

"I built a new one, don't worry," the Doctor says ruefully, "But the old one had all my settings already programmed in. I'm going to have to sit down and remember all the different settings I had, and then program them into the new one. For now, the basics should do," he reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and draws out his new sonic screwdriver, to look at it. It's shiny and new, compared to the old one. "But it doesn't do toast. I liked when it did toast," he pushes out his lower lip.

Rose breathes out, relieved for him.

"Where was I?" he asks, but before she can answer, the answer comes to him from memory, "Right. So, Finch assimilated the biomass of a human. If the Judoon didn't find her, they'd kill everyone in the hospital, so the best option was to help them find her. Martha distracted the Judoon, and I confronted … oh, I don't like that word. I … parleyed … yeah, I like that better … I parleyed, with Mrs. Finch," he says simply.

Rose's brows go up. "And what, you just … beat up an old woman?" she asks innocently.

The Doctor thinks, _really thinks, _that that is a horrible accusation and she should know he would never do anything like that, even knowing that the aforementioned old lady was in fact a dangerous alien intent on murdering for pleasure, but for some reason, his mouth does not agree, and instead, he bursts out laughing at the mental image of him, socking a little old lady in the face. He hunches over, grabs his own belly, and guffaws helplessly.

Rose grins at this display of amusement. "What? What did I say?"

This only makes the Doctor laugh harder. He's imagining whapping Mrs. Finch with a carefree expression on his face, and possibly skipping - no, _frolicking - _at the same time, and he feels his stomach starting to hurt with how hard he's laughing. Oh, he could drop the nickname of the Oncoming Storm and become, instead, the Geriatric Abuser. He could traverse all of time and space just to smack old people in the face! It's a horrible thing to be laughing about, he tells himself, but for some reason, he thinks it's hilarious.

"You're sick," Rose suddenly says, as it dawns on her that he's actually _laughing _at the idea of punching an old woman. The Doctor gasps for breath between chuckles that have now descended into cackling. "No, really. You need help," she says, trying for seriousness, but only managing a chiding tone that borders on bemusement.

"Can you …" the Doctor squeaks between gasps, "imagine …" he goes on, "Me, hitting …" he descends again into helpless sniggering.

Rose shakes her head, chuckling lightly, and continues to eat her meal until he can finally rein in some control on his speech. He tries a few more times to go back to his story, only to fall back again into the laughter. Rose smiles warmly, thinking about how _weird, _and at the same time, normal, this is. Sitting cross-legged in an armchair, eating fish and chips, and talking to her best friend on the phone, who's laughing uncontrollably over the idea of punching an old lady in the face.

"ANYWAY," the Doctor says firmly, suddenly, forcing himself to be calm. He clears his throat. "I basically offered myself up as a sacrifice to the plasmavore, knowing she would assimilate my biomass and no longer register as human," he says quickly, and sets his face, hoping Rose won't make too big an issue of this.

Rose coughs. "Eh?" she asks, sputtering. "Wouldn't that … I mean … couldn't that have killed you?" she asks, and she sounds worried.

"Well … yes," the Doctor allows, breathing out heavily. His voice is suddenly very serious. "But, if they didn't find Finch, a thousand people would die. They'd execute everyone in the hospital. The needs of the few for the needs of the many, all that," the Doctor reasons with a sniff, a hand coming up to scratch a sideburn.

Rose sounds like she wants to argue, but all that comes out is, "Right," in a small, slightly confused voice. Then, sounding a little more confident, she says, "But you didn't die."

The Doctor's expression is more at ease with this. "No. I did not. I would've done, if Martha hadn't come along. She did CPR on me, Rose! You know, sometimes you think it doesn't work, but now I've got these two big bruises on my chest, and let me tell you, _it works._"

Rose breathes out through her nose, smiling, but not feeling very hungry anymore. She pushes the remainder of her meal away, along with the table.

"Anyway, so when I came to, Finch and the Judoon were gone, there was hardly any oxygen left, Martha was on the floor, and she said that Finch did something to the MRI machine before passing out. I had no sonic screwdriver, and a Magnetic Resonance Imagine machine that was about to cut the population of planet Earth in half, plus the worst headache I've ever had in my very long life - but with a bit of hands-on jiggerypokery, I managed to stop the machine from killing everyone. And around the same time, the Judoon reversed the H20 scoop, plopped the hospital back on Earth, and I snuck off before the police could get me for a statement …" the Doctor pauses and trails off, looking over his shoulder to see Martha wandering out of the hallways. "Ready to go?" he asks simply, smiling and taking the phone form his ear just a bit.

Martha gives him a bewildered, amazed look, and hooks a thumb over her shoulder. "Yeah, er … sorry, I got lost," she says, a little breathlessly. "Um. Do you know there's an octopus in a swimming pool in one of those rooms?" she asks carefully, like she's asking if he's aware of a rodent problem, or something else along that spectrum. The Doctor's mouth opens, just as Martha notices that he's on the phone. She looks confused. "Aliens have mobiles?" she asks bluntly, one brow going up.

Rose hears the girl on the other end, and her face softens somewhat. She bites her lower lip to keep herself from giggling, even if she still feels a little bit jealous of Martha's being there with the Doctor. She thinks she's going to like Martha, and that makes her feel infinitely better. "You'd best go," she says into the phone, pulling her mouth to one side, trying not to let on that she's at all disappointed.

The Doctor pauses momentarily, and puts the phone back to his ear. "Yeah, probably," he answers with a rueful sigh, though smiling. _'I'll see you later' _is on his tongue, but then he reminds himself that he won't. He clears his throat awkwardly again, and can't help but notice Martha tilting her head curiously at him. "Good night," he says slowly, smoothly, his smile growing slightly.

Rose smiles too. "Night," she answers softly, and takes the phone from her ear, hitting the red button on the right side of the phone.

On the other side of the void, the Doctor and Martha set off for an adventure in Shakespearean London - which is significantly less extravagant than either of them thought. Much later in the night, the Doctor finds that he misses Rose quite badly, and waits until Martha is asleep to pull out his phone.

He is disappointed to find that their phone connection doesn't work if he is in a time without mobile masts. He tries to send a text, but doesn't know if it gets through.

And then he breathes a sigh and stares at the ceiling until morning.


End file.
